


No One Has Anything to Tell

by kylee



Category: Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena, Мор. Утопия | Pathologic
Genre: Apparent Suicide Attempt, Child Marriage, Crossover, Depiction of illness, Gen, Mob Violence, Surreal, The Swords of Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-25 13:07:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22396606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kylee/pseuds/kylee
Summary: The Rose Bride, they said, was birthed from the steppe in red blood and snowmelt.
Relationships: Himemiya Anthy & Tenjou Utena
Kudos: 18





	No One Has Anything to Tell

Inquisitor Tenjou was sent to town to investigate the rumor of a miracle of eternal life. The Rose Bride, they said, was birthed from the steppe in red blood and snowmelt. Twyre bloomed where she stepped, and Asian roses, and she would never die. The people despised her, called her a Spawn-of-Suok ... but the children growing too old for the Specular Tower, children yet on the cusp of adulthood, would play strange games with the Bride at the center. 

Tenjou didn't ask why she was chosen for the job. It must have been her youth, her bull-headed dedication, her fight against corruption that so often put her at odds with her colleagues. Yet she stared long at the ring she still wore on her finger, and half-remembered her dreams scented with roses.

…

It wasn’t Tenjou’s way, to come in and take over with executors at her heels. She wound into town, and she talked to people. She didn’t have to play the innocent, open-faced outsider — she didn’t have to pry, to hear about the Rose Bride. Everyone wanted to talk about her, with the plague in the air.

“They say the Rose Bride will never die. But,” Tenjou asked, “isn’t that an odd thing to say? How does anyone know she won’t die?”

“Because they tried,” someone told her, in exchange for a pocket watch.

Another (for a handful of names on scrap paper) said, “The Rose Bride doesn’t have a heart. She can never die, so the blades of hate will cut into her forever.”

“I heard,” added a theater-worker in lofty tones, “that it was the Rose Bride’s brother who cut out her heart.”

“Her brother?” Why _was_ she sent for the job? Tenjou was never the smartest of Inquisitors, only the most stubborn, the one in everyone’s business. Untangling the local lore took some thinking. “But wasn’t the Rose Bride born from the steppe?”

“Monsters and miracles are born from the same earth. The Rose Bride is a witch and a changeling, but her brother was a saint and a miracle-worker. Her first sin was stealing his fate, and stealing him from the world."

 _If he tried to cut out her heart, I don’t blame her._ She asked around town, but no no one could report seeing it happen. No one could recall seeing the Rose Bride and her brother in the same place. But all of them knew the story or _a_ story, knew how the witch became a witch, and knew the saint was gone forever.

A sneering steppe-woman, one of the others they called _shabnak-adyr_ , told her something interesting. “They’ve got it all wrong. No one but the Menkhu can cut into bodies. The pretty little Rose Bride’s never spilt a drop of blood — the blades she carries cut her from inside.”

…

The Rose Bride was just a girl. A girl with curling hair, and a pink dress gathered like a Greek chiton. To Tenjou, she looked far less strange than the herb brides with their dresses torn to rags. Her eyes were green as gardens.

The Rose Bride, the changeling witch, the undying girl … was just a girl, after all. Overwhelmed by a mob, her hands up to defend herself — but they were only hands, nothing against daggers, clubs, guns. 

Faster than thought, Tenjou unleashed the rifle from her back — she shot and struck — and she held her bayonet at a bandit’s throat.

“If there’s one thing I hate,” Tenjou said, “it’s cowardly men who pick on little girls.”

The mob scattered. The Rose Bride looked at Tenjou, gardens in her eyes.

“You’re coming with me,” Tenjou announced. Then, remembering her audience, she softened her tone. “I’ll keep you safe. What’s your name?”

“Anthy Himemiya. And from this day on, I am your flower.”

…

Anthy Himemiya was just a girl, after all. Roses didn’t bloom in her footsteps. But she stirred the Inquisitor’s tea, and the scent lingered in the air. “I don’t need —“ Tenjou halted mid-objection. “Thank you,” she said instead.

Like a child again, she held the cup in both hands, and breathed in the steam from it. The scent was the same as her dreams.

“Don’t be afraid,” Tenjou started to say, as though it needed saying. Anthy looked as if she had never been afraid in her life, hands folded, face smooth and smiling, awaiting Tenjou’s word. In the red light of the Cathedral, Tenjou noticed purple undertones in the dark of Anthy’s hair, like the sky at the edge of evening. “I just want to ask you a few questions.”

“As you wish, my mistress.”

“Don’t call me that — it’s Tenjou. Utena Tenjou.”

“As you wish, Utena, my mistress.”

“What’s that about?” Utena sighed, frustrated and confused. “How am I your _mistress_ ?” She didn’t like the sound of it, didn’t know why she wanted to say _you’re more a Mistress than I am._

“You’re wearing the Mark of the Duellist. That means you’re a part of their game. You, too, may fight for the Rose Bride. You, too, must have wished for a miracle.”

“The _Mark_? This?” Utena held up her hand, let her ring shine. It bore a signet she used to see as a rose, but since witnessing the Specular Tower on the other side of the river, she thought it resembled nothing so much as its spiraling stairs. “Himemiya, what do you know about this ring?”

Anthy’s smile never faltered. “I was made for miracles, Utena, my mistress. Accept me, and nothing needs to die.”

...

Tenjou had her next round of interviews (interviews, not interrogations) in the Cathedral. She didn’t want to do it, but she had to get to the bottom of this, had to understand what was happening here. 

"Aren't you a little young to be an Inquisitor?"

"Aren't you a little young to be leading a cult?"

The redhead chuckled, as if Inquisitor Tenjou were a naive little girl, and he the reasonable adult. "It's not a cult. It's a consortium of like-minded youths. There's a reason why, when you're too old, they won't let you in the Polyhedron. That's when you see the Polyhedron's true potential. It's that which shines, something eternal, the power of miracles. It can revolutionize the world. And whoever possesses the Rose Bride ..."

"Himemiya is a _person_ , not a possession."

"She's your possession now." Was that a pout on Touga Kiryuu's face? "You know, it wasn't very fair of you to interrupt our game."

“Deal with it. Isn’t the plague more important to you?”

“Our game’s so important _because_ of the plague. If a chick stays within its shell,” Touga recited, “it will die without being born.”

…

Anthy was too at home in the red light of the Cathedral. Tenjou didn’t care to look at her out of the corner of her eye. 

“Have you accepted me yet?” she asked, voice soft as a rolling fog. “Will you take me as your bride?”

“I’m an Inquisitor,” Tenjou insisted, flustered. “It’s not that I dislike you ... It’s that miracles are against the Law.”

“Oh, yes,” Anthy answered, with a placid smile. “Children do love their rules. They’re the first to cry out when someone isn’t playing fair. But have you noticed? The rules are always on their side.”

“Even if it weren’t against the Law, I wouldn’t support it. I won’t support a system that deprives someone of their personal freedom.”

“But I’m not a someone, I’m a no one. I’m the Spawn-of-Suok, and Suok is emptiness.”

“I don’t believe that!” Utena shouted, suddenly heated. She turned to Anthy, the girl with evening in her hair, and took her by the shoulders. “You’re a normal girl, Himemiya. You should get to have a normal life.”

Unmoving, Anthy hummed to herself — as if that were an interesting thought. “But you must take ownership of me,” she said. “Or the miracle won’t occur. I belong to you, Utena, my mistress.”

...

"I'm not playing to possess the Rose Bride. I'm playing because there's no such thing as miracles. Kiryuu and the others won't believe me until I win." The girl with the tight orange curls looked like someone used to winning. She looked like a sculpture of an angel of war, her proud jaw jutted forward.

"I guess that makes sense." It didn't, but Tenjou couldn't admit she was in over her head with these teenagers. "Why do you think there's no such thing as miracles?"

"Because ... there can't be miracles." Her fingers curled at her neck. A gold chain glinted there. "Aren't you the Inquisitor? Aren't you going to prove to everyone that miracles don't exist?"

Tenjou flinched at the fierce challenge in Juri Arisaguwa’s eyes. 

The girl’s glare seized next on the ring at Tenjou’s finger. “Why do you have that?”

“A promise, I guess,” Tenjou mumbled. “When I was younger. Some other kid gave it to me as a gift. Said he’d love me forever, if I kept my noble heart.”

All at once, the cool marble angel cracked — Juri boiled over into raw anger. “Childhood promises … are worse than miracles! You don’t deserve to be an Inquisitor!”

…

“I wonder, I wonder, do you wonder what I wonder?”

“I know, I know, do you know what I know?”

Two black-dressed tragedians leaned together, stage whispering to one another through their masks.

“Utena Tenjou! Inquisitor to the Inquisitors! Watchwoman of the Capital! Prince of Investigators!”

“Aren’t you forgetting something, Utena Tenjou?”

“Something important?”

“Something you pretend not to see?”

Tenjou frowned. “Cut it out,” she said, with no inquisitorial force behind it. These days her face felt warm, her throat felt dry. She coughed and she coughed but nothing knocked loose. “This is embarrassing.”

“Inquisitor Tenjou, Upholder of the Law!” The two tragedians turned in tandem, to point straight at Tenjou. “Didn’t you once long to fight death?”

“ _Hey_!” But before she could shout them down, smack the smug masks off their faces, Tenjou heard the little girl in the back of her head.

_Just living ... is sickening. Why does everyone do it, if we’re all going to die one day?_

…

Anthy was too at home in the red light of the Cathedral. Out of the corner of her eye, Tenjou saw the flash of swords like seamstress’s scissors.

_Snip-snip._

“Someone told me that you carried ... blades … inside you.” These days Tenjou’s thoughts moved slow, her head swimming. She didn’t like that at all. “That they’re always cutting you from inside.”

“Yes.” Anthy touched a hand to her chest. “There’s a blade for you, too. Did you want to take it from me?”

From somewhere, Tenjou could hear the rattling of metal on metal. “How?”

“It’s very simple. I say the formula: Utena, Utena, I know of you this …”

_Isn’t there something you’re pretending not to see?_

Once, she lay in a coffin. Lush with roses and offerings, she waited to die. _I can’t believe I never noticed,_ she thought, and that was the end of her childhood. _There’s no such thing as something eternal, is there?_

The blade shot through her hands like a star.

She’d wished for this. Back then, in her coffin … she wished someone would show her a miracle …

“For the revolution of the world …”

Tenjou panicked. She thrust the blade back, and regretted it — it looked like she was killing her, Himemiya, Anthy. “I can’t … I _can’t_ …” 

Staring up at the hourglass center of the Cathedral, Anthy’s eyes were glazed as a glass doll’s.

A doll without a heart.

…

Tenjou canceled the rest of her interviews, because she was dying.

 _So this is the Sand Pest_ , she thought. No wonder. No matter how much tea Anthy brought her, her throat stayed dry as sand. She supposed her heart would dry up, too, and wither away.

“Take me to the Polyhedron,” Anthy said. It was something like a command.

“Isn’t it better this way? Once I’m gone, you’ll be free of this silly game … since I’m the one who ‘possesses’ you. Heh.” Tenjou tried to laugh, but she hacked until her lungs hurt. “Don’t let the other kids boss you around, okay? Just live like a normal girl from now on.”

“I will never be a normal girl. My brother ...”

“Your brother the saint? Hey, tell me, Himemiya ... did he ever exist?” Even ill, Tenjou could conjure the steel gaze of an Inquisitor. “Who gave me this ring?”

Anthy didn’t answer. It didn’t matter. Tenjou softened again, smiled at her, and reached for her hand.

“You know, Himemiya … I’m truly happy I got to meet you. I feel … like we should’ve been friends …”

…

In her fever dreams, Tenjou saw things she shouldn’t. She saw Anthy in front of a coffin, and the coffin was a door, and when she opened it, it spilled into a theater. She saw actors in masks like talons flanking the stage, and a lanky figure standing at its height, tapping a cane against his shoulder.

She saw the half-a-soul, always at Anthy’s side, a little monkey with a long and swaying tail. It tilted its head at all the pageantry, and let out a burbling _cheep_.

“The Rose Bride Who Never Dies,” the stageman pronounced. “It’s a nice conceit, I’ll give you that. But you know how it goes: when the players are all dead, there needs none to be blamed. So long as the actress gets up and curtsies at the end, the audience will applaud at the pretty trick. To the rest of the world the Rose Bride never dies, but backstage, it’s another blade to sharpen, another penalty to impose.”

“Oh, my,” Anthy said without inflection. “That must be so troublesome for you.”

He clucked his tongue. “No trouble at all. It’s what we live for. But aren’t you back too soon?”

“The Inquisitor has caught the plague.”

“Ah. Between you and I,” he confided, “I think it’s a pity your prince was an Inquisitor. If she were a Commander, she would rouse armies for you, storm the town with flags and cannons and spread the glories of your good word. But Inquisitors and witches are natural enemies. Type-cast, so to speak. Alas, I’m only the stage manager! I didn’t write the script.”

“I don’t care what she is,” Anthy stated, simply. “She sees me as I am.” 

“Does she? I thought you kept your true self from the petty crowd. I thought all of this —” He gestured at her with a twirl of his cane. “Was your illusion. Or have you decided who you want to be? Are you the saint or the changeling?”

“I don’t care what I am. I want to heal her.”

“ _Brava_ ! The Rose Bride has discovered her will. But you can’t heal _everyone_. That’s one of our themes.”

“Yes,” she said, “I know. To heal everyone, you must be a saint. And to be a saint, you must make a sacrifice. But I never wanted to save _everyone —_ just the one I care for.”

“Some lives are claimed by happenstance; others, claimed by plot. The only rule is that once you touch a piece, you have to play it.”

“Or I could stop playing the game altogether.”

“You could, you could. But don’t you want to see what happens next?”

“I know what happens next. The Inquisitor was right. My brother, the saint, was never a part of this world. I am not the thief who stole his fate … I am the fulfillment of the promise. No matter the world, no matter the game, no matter how long it takes ... I’ll find her.”

“Ah, yes. That’s how you found her in her coffin, wasn’t it?”

“I was only a doll, with no heart of my own, until someone breathed their story in me … but I am grateful even for this for life.” Anthy crossed her hand over her chest, where her heart should be. “She said she was happy she met me.”

“Believe it or not,” the stageman said, “I _am_ fond of your story. I wish you well in your next performance.”

The Rose Bride collapsed into empty air, and her dress fell to the floor.

...

The Specular Tower, spiraling, aspiring — it could go on forever, but it didn’t. Only the Rose Bride lived forever, and the Rose Bride lived in pain. She stood at the edge. 

She stood at the edge, and she tumbled, like a puppet with cut strings.

_Snip._

_Snip._

“Himemiya — !” Tenjou, Utena caught her wrist. Her grasp was weak, her skin cracked with Sand Plague.

“Let me go.”

“I won’t! I won’t let you die. You’ll live forever, because … because … “ Tears shone in the Inquisitor’s eyes. “You matter too much to me.”

She was a child again, the girl in the coffin, the girl who hated the thought of living to die. And Anthy was a child, but her eyes were so much older.

She’d been pretending not to notice it. How had it gone on so long?

Anthy had shown her so many smiles. This one came from her heart, the heart cut out long ago, fed to the earth which rejected it. 

“Until we meet again … Utena.”

**Author's Note:**

> [ERNest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ERNest/pseuds/ERNest) asked 'what if Anthy was the Changeling and Utena was the Inquisitor' and apparently that's all I needed to be off to the races.


End file.
